Blank Canvas Awarded Top Syrah at the Originalverkorkt Cool-Climate Tasting!

The 2014 Blank Canvas Syrah performed extremely strongly in the ‘Original Verkorkt’ Cool-Climate Tasting held in Hamburg in Germany, a blind tasting competition of the top cool climate Syrah wines around the world. Of 33 wines, evaluated blind by 15 tasters from all different areas of the trade, our Syrah took the prize!

Flagship wines included those from the Northern Rhone (Domaine Jamet, Augustus Clape, Rene Rostaing, Dard e Ribo), Austria, USA, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. We are very honoured to be included in such a prestigious line-up, including wines that are truly our inspiration. Thanks to Christoph Raffelt for including Blank Canvas and thanks to our hard-working German importers and champions of New Zealand wine, Neuseeland Weinboutique. We love cool climate Syrah and just wish we could have experienced this fantastic tasting!

An official report from Christoph Raffelt will follow which we will post in due course! Here is a link to the Podcast featuring the Blank Canvas Syrah on Raffelt’s German Weekly Wine Podcast (in German).

From left to right, the Top 10 Syrah from the Blind Cool-Climate Tasting in Germany.

English Translation of Blind Tasting Results:

“Yesterday, the third ‘Original Verkorkt’ Cool-Climate Tasting took place in Hamburg’s Witwenball. Theme this time: Syrah around the world from relatively cool areas. With an illustrious round of 13 tasters and 33 Syrah. Strongly represented the Rhône on both sides of the border with sounding names like Clape, Chave, Rostaing, Jamet, Paul Jaboulet-Aîné and Dard & Ribo. After several hours of intensive tasting and discussion, the top places were confirmed, which was confirmed by evaluation of the punctuation.

On the first rank is a truly sensationally good Blank Canvas Syrah 2014 (Ø 18.04) from the Gimblett Gravels at Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. Matt Thomson, whose Pinot Noir was among the top five at Cool Climate Pinot Tasting, shows his experience from 25 years of experience gained in different parts of the world. It is the virgin Syrah of the winery, which is newly established and the wine is special in that, instead of the few percent Viognier, which one gives to the wines at the Côte Rôtie, it has taken Grüner Veltliner. 2nd place in the Histoire d’Enfer 2014 (Ø 17.87) from the Valais – Rhône but on the Swiss side. An extremely fine Syrah, followed by the Dard & Ribo Hermitage 2013 (Ø 17.66). After that Christian Tschida Felsen II 2012 (Ø 17,41) and René Rostaing Côte Rôtie La Landonne share fourth place in 2013.

Which is very clear that the already very open wines are ahead of the others. Such a tasting can only ever be a snapshot, and so are the points that these wines prefer. Nevertheless, according to the feedback from the round, it was a very illuminating event and that’s why I organized it. Among the top ten were my Coup de Coeur, the Sydhang by Dorli Muhr and, with Radio Coteau, one of the three outstanding Californians. In the 10-field then the power of Nordrhône becomes clearer. As always with such a tasting, the bandwidth is huge. For example, there was a poorly worded 2012 Hermitage La Chapelle by Paul Jaboulet-Aîné and a Cornas by Clape with a hard-to-explain mistake that was not present at opening and pre-cost, but at tasting. Many thanks to #Riedel and Axel Bode and Joscha Wilms from the Widow’s Ball for the support. The same lineup will be out in five years’ time.”